New York bar mixes cocktails and Chinese pop to give the music life beyond karaoke lounges
A temple to Cantopop and Mandopop, 929 serves cocktails inspired by Leslie Cheung and Dou Wei. For the owner, it’s about embracing identity
In New York’s Long Island City neighbourhood there is a nondescript, white-tiled Taiwanese restaurant named Gulp.
Those not in the know might assume that the five counter seats are all there is to this little joint, but open the grey door at the rear, pull back the curtain behind it and you will find yourself in a softly lit cocktail bar imbued with warm, red tones reminiscent of Wong Kar-wai films.
This is 929, a bar that pays tribute to 1980s and 1990s Cantonese and Mandarin pop culture and music, so named for its phonetic similarity to “night to night” and because the numbers represent a New York telephone area code.
They are all from the personal collection of Chen Haoran, who founded 929 with architect Sean Yang and restaurateur Jeff Liu.
Chen Haoran, who is originally from Jiangmen in China’s Guangdong province, recalls listening to his mother’s favourite records as a child, which led him to amass his own collection of Cantopop and Mandopop albums, especially after moving to New York when he was 11.